Legal Issues

Who’s Watching the Children

Child sex predators lurk in shadows and the light of day, and they’re likely to turn up at aquatics facilities. Our special investigation shows how to protect your most vulnerable patrons from this serious threat.

It started out as a normal week in July. David Jones and Carlo Stowers
were two young guys working off the summer at their hometown pool.
They thought Edward Richard Larson was just another visitor at
McKinley Park’s pool in Sacramento, Calif.

But by week’s end, Jones and Stowers found themselves
under the microscope, and Larson had made an entire community
question the safety of the local pool. It wasn’t a drowning
or near drowning that rocked this facility. It was something
aquatics professionals are much less prepared to deal with —
a sex offense.

After a conversation with one boy raised suspicion, Jones and
Stowers started to note Larson’s unusual behavior.
“Every single day, [Larson] would just sit here,”
Stowers, then a lifeguard, told reporters after the 2005
incident.

Soon a second boy came forward, telling then-assistant manager
Jones how the same man had shown him pornography, according to
reports. After that, Jones and Stowers informed law enforcement
officials, who caught Larson in the pool’s restroom rubbing
sunblock on a 12-year-old boy, which violated the terms of his
probation as a registered sex offender. It was Larson’s
second sexual offense with a minor.

Initially, Jones and Stowers were lauded as local heroes for
unmasking Larson, who is currently serving a sentence for three
counts of child molestation and felony annoyance. But not long
after the arrest, fear set in and questions arose. Many residents
stopped bringing their kids to the pool. Most were afraid another
incident would happen. Some questioned whether Jones and Stowers
had responded appropriately. If they and the facility had done
enough to protect the children. Why did it take two boys coming
forward for them to act?

That story and the concerns it raised likely sound uncomfortably
familiar to many aquatics professionals. Among the numerous sources
contacted for Aquatics International’s yearlong
investigation, all had experienced encounters with sexual
predators.

By those accounts, every commercial pool and waterpark is at
risk of pedophiles. Statistics paint an equally grim picture.
Nationally, one in five girls and one in 10 boys will be sexually
exploited before the age of 18, according to the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. Even those
numbers are artificially low because an estimated 69 percent of
sexual offenses go unreported, the U.S. Department of Justice reports.
What’s more, it estimates that 20 percent of the 566,000
registered sex offenders are “off the map,” or
unaccounted for at any one time.

But chances are good that predators will turn up at aquatics
facilities. With their abundance of unsupervised, partially clothed
kids, pools and waterparks are prime targets for sex offenders,
warn law enforcement officials. Despite that threat and
professionals’ own apparent awareness of it, the industry is
doing little to guard against these offenses, according to an
Aquatics International survey. While 40 percent of
respondents say they have personally encountered or had knowledge
of a sex offender at their facilities, only 46 percent have had any
training on the subject. Training that does occur comes from
outside the industry nearly 70 percent of the time, the survey
shows.

That may be because many professionals don’t see sex
offenders as a major concern. Fifty-three percent of the survey
respondents think predators pose only “somewhat of a
threat,” while another 17 percent believe they are “no
threat at all.” Part of the problem is that many people are
uncomfortable with the idea of sex offenders, and feel ill-equipped
to deal with them. The very notion of a sexual offense raises
squeamish questions. What’s the difference between friendly
interaction and inappropriate behavior? Is it an issue for
lifeguards or law enforcement? What’s the role of
parents?

But if the industry is truly going to offer children a safe
haven, aquatics professionals must get past those questions and
establish definitive answers for them, say professionals and law
enforcement officials, many of whom have helped catch sex offenders
at facilities.

“Some industry members are beginning to take a more
proactive stance about it,” says Richard Dangel, Ph.D.,
president/CEO of Praesidium Inc. in Arlington, Texas. “But we
think everybody needs to be doing that because nobody wants their
child’s first sexual experience to take place in a locker
room at a waterpark or public pool with a stranger.”

See no evil, hear no evil

For most people, the word “sex offender” conjures
images of a shadowy figure lurking in alleyways under the cover of
night. But the loner in the trench coat stereotype can be
misleading. Most sex offenders look like everyone else and come in
all shapes and sizes, which is why they’re so difficult to
identify, according to experts.

“To say that people should be looking for a 6-foot guy
with glazed eyes would be inaccurate,” says John Gillies,
chief of the Violent Crimes Section at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in
Washington, D.C. “It could be the clean-cut guy who’s
really the pedophile.”

Sometimes the perpetrator can be a trusted member of the
community, as was the case of Joseph Habib. Last July, the
27-year-old firefighter was accused of groping four children during
a game of football at a hotel swimming pool in Orlando, Fla. In a
more notorious case, John Geoghan, the defrocked Roman Catholic
priest, was sentenced to life imprisonment for more than 140
alleged sexual offenses. His first conviction came in January 2002
for molesting a boy in a pool a decade earlier.

To hear it from aquatics supervisors on the front lines, sexual
predators are a persistent nuisance that comes with the territory
— one nobody warns you about at the job interview.

“Over the course of a year, we expect to see several
cases, though it depends on the season,” says Kathy Whitman,
aquatics manager at Seattle’s Department of
Parks and Recreation. Out of the 37 pools and nine beaches
under her supervision, Whitman recalls at least 10 reported cases
that occurred this year through August.

Dangel’s firm provides risk assessments for recreational
facilities exposed to crimes of this nature. Over 20 years,
Praesidium has assisted in more than 4,000 cases of abuse at
youth-centered organizations, from waterparks and public pools to
sport camps and churches. That’s roughly 200 cases per
year.

“When we’ve done training at waterparks or pools,
we’ve never had an audience where there weren’t
multiple people who had already dealt with these types of
incidents,” says Dangel, a psychologist specializing in the
treatment of sexually abused children.

Too often, he says, organizations won’t seek out his
services until a crime has already been committed. “Since
there’s competition to pay attention to all the possible
threats a program is at risk for, I think this one sometimes
doesn’t get the level of attention that drowning does, for
instance,” he says.

At the same time, few industry leaders seem willing to confront
the elephant in the room or address the issue of sexual predators
in a meaningful way, leaving local pool operators to fend for
themselves or seek outside help.

“It doesn’t happen every day, which is probably why
it hasn’t been included in our training,” says Farhad
Madani, president of the Aquatic Branch of the National Recreation &
Park Association.

Madani is also the assistant director of the Austin (Texas)
Parks and Recreation Department and oversees 49 public pools,
only one of which has had an incident in the past few years that he
can recall. Nonetheless, he says, “Yes, I think there is an
educational need out there. I strongly feel the education should
come from the certification entities because there you have a
captive audience.”

A review of instructional manuals from the industry’s top
professional training and certification programs shows that most of
the available information on the subject is either superficial in
nature or simply nonexistent. NRPA includes no training in regard
to sexual predators in either its Aquatic Facility Operator course
or its National Aquatics Management School. The American Red Cross,
which certifies more than 90 percent of the nation’s
lifeguards, includes a brief section on “Pedophile
Awareness” in its lifeguard management training. A more
general section on violent behavior and uncooperative patrons is
included in ARC’s basic level lifeguard training program.

Longtime aquatics professionals say more needs to be done.
“I’ve been in aquatics for 20 years at various
facilities, and we’ve always had issues like this come up in
different venues. Every place I’ve worked, we had a couple of
incidents with strange people lurking around,” says Teresa
Rodriguez, aquatics service manager at the Herdon (Va.) Community
Center. Her most recent experience was with a flasher who
exposed himself through a window at her indoor pool. “Most
people don’t want to touch the topic because they don’t
feel comfortable talking about it. With our younger staff, it got
to the point where they wouldn’t tell us about something
until it had been going on for a couple of weeks.”

Of course, sex crimes are an uncomfortable subject, one
that’s been swept under the rug for ages only to surface in
the public consciousness in recent times. As awareness increases,
so does the dearth of information about it. Like a bottomless pit,
the more light experts shine on the subject, the more they realize
how little they actually know about it.

An attractive nuisance

One thing they do know is that aquatics facilities are targets for
pedophiles. That’s because aquatic environments create
opportunities that make them twice as appealing as schools or the
other usual haunts associated with these predators.

“There are a few conditions that put an aquatics programs
at higher risk,” Dangel says. “One is the condition of
nudity. What we tell our clients is that where there is water,
there is increased risk because there’s a chance for partial
or full nudity.”

Gerald Hover, EdD, a psychologist and clinical supervisor with
the Washington State Department of Corrections, concurs: “I think what
makes waterparks and pools attractive to a majority of citizens is
that they get to have some fun while being nearly naked. When you
think about it, there’s not much of a difference between a
swimsuit and underwear.”

“For someone who is aroused by children, he gets to look
around at nearly naked kids,” adds Hover, who helps
rehabilitate sex offenders. “Then you’re wet and in
locker rooms in various stage of undress. That can be provocative
for some people.”

Dangel highlights a second condition that makes aquatics
facilities particularly inviting. “Child molesters require
anonymity because they don’t want to get caught,” he
says. “They can get that by taking a child to a private area,
like a locker room, or by being in a large crowd where no one knows
them. What’s more crowded than a waterpark on a hot
day?”

For that reason, Dangel’s group examines the physical
layout of each aquatics facility when performing a risk assessment.
The purpose is to expose remote and unsupervised areas — such
as locker rooms or equipment and supply closets — that
present potential risk factors due to the site’s ease of
access and opportunity for secrecy.

Of course, many of these acts might be taking place right in
plain sight. “In the past, we’ve had situations where
an adult came to a public swim, but they weren’t there to
swim laps,” Whitman reports. “They would just sit at
one end of the pool with their goggles on and try to spot kids
under the water whenever they’d get close.”

That’s just one example of behavior to watch for at a
facility. “What lifeguards [and pool operators] should be on
the lookout for is unusual behavior or something out of the
ordinary,” says Detective Bob Shilling, who heads the Special
Assault Unit of the Seattle Police Department. “For instance,
if someone is taking too long in a locker room, or you see someone
hanging around with a child who you know they’re not related
to. There are all sorts of red flags.”

Some law enforcement agents say sexual predators exhibit a
couple of common patterns and employ many similar ruses. For
example, Shilling says there are two types of predators: those who
are “hands-off” and interested in voyeurism, and those
who are more “hands-on” and will try to get a child
alone for the purpose of molesting them.

While the characteristics can vary, a Justice report suggests
that 96 percent of sex offenders are male, though females also may
pose a threat.

Like a pied piper, predators may use kindness to disguise their
intentions and lure victims into their confidence — unlike
other forms of violent offenders who demonstrate telltale signs of
aggressiveness. “We call them grooming techniques,”
Shilling says. “They will try to befriend a child or even an
adult with a child by trying to appear helpful. They might offer to
teach a child how to dive or get involved with games that kids are
playing in the pool.”

Rodriguez recalls a case where a stranger showed up to a pool
party at her facility handing out invitations to random children
for another birthday party at a nearby McDonald’s the next
day.

One of the most common forms of sexual offense is called
frottage, where a predator will intentionally try to rub up against
or bump into their victims without them noticing what just took
place. For that reason, frottage also is the most difficult offense
to prove. Experts warn that wave pools and lazy rivers provide
ideal chances to commit frottage because the turbidity of the water
makes it difficult to spot.

Modern technology, such as camera phones, is being used
increasingly by predators. Whitman says she’s had many
instances where people walk by one of her wading pools and snap a
photo of a kid splashing around in the water. They also might try
to take a quick picture of a child changing in the locker room. She
worries that a child from one of her facilities could end up
exploited in Internet pornography.

The lack of parental supervision at aquatics facilities makes
abuse prevention and keeping an eye on children all the more
difficult. Pool operators say that some parents try to use the
local pool as a sort of day-care center when their kids are on
summer break. Fully 76 percent of respondents in the Aquatics
International survey say that minors attend their facilities
unaccompanied by an adult or guardian either “very
often” or “frequently.” However, at the same
time, nearly 21 percent have no policy regarding minors attending
their facilities unaccompanied by an adult.

Some facility managers have problems with their own city’s
policies governing child attendance. Rodriguez says her pool allows
children 8 and older to attend the center without a guardian
present, something she hopes to change with her supervisor.

The dilemma of age requirements amounts to a Catch-22 between
how to keep kids safe while promoting attendance. On one hand,
operators need to encourage youngsters to swim, especially with so
many facilities closing around the country due to declines in
attendance. On the other hand, parents — even more than
lifeguards — can play a vital role in supervision at a public
pool, Whitman says.

Recognizing the risk that recreational facilities are up
against, many states and municipalities are passing laws that
create sex-offender-free zones around schools, public parks and
swimming pools.

Commonly known as Jessica’s Law, the Jessica Lunsford Act
is intended to mandate more stringent tracking of convicted sex
offenders. Many state and local versions of the bill also create
buffer zones between areas where kids commonly gather and places
where sex offenders can live. Typically, these laws prevent
previous offenders from living within 500 to 2,500 feet of a school
or public park.

Since the Act was first passed in Florida in May 2005, many
states and municipalities have expanded the language of their
versions of Jessica’s Law to include pools.
“Historically, we’ve had issues a couple of times a
summer where known sex offenders were loitering around public
swimming pools trying to talk to kids inappropriately,” says
Rep. R. Shawn Tornow (R-Sioux Falls), the legislator behind South
Dakota’s bill (HB-1066) that bars sex offenders from living
within 500 feet of pools and public parks. “Parents and kids
ought to have some comfort that those types of predators cannot
loiter or live near these areas.”

To serve and protect

Even those laws aren’t enough, however, to completely deter
sex offenders. That leaves lifeguards and managers as the last line
of defense. But those who want additional training might have to
take their cues from Whitman and Rodriguez. Both women have had to
organize their own in-service training seminars with local law
enforcement agencies and child abuse experts.

In Whitman’s case, she asked Detective Shilling and Hover
to speak with her staff members on the subject of how to deal with
sexual predators. Meanwhile, Rodriguez invited officials from the
Fairfax County Police Department and ChildSafeNet Inc.
to talk with her group.

Rodriguez and Whitman receive regular bulletins about potential
threats in their areas from local police, which they share with
their staffs. Usually, law enforcement agencies are happy to
partner with civilian organizations to provide training free of
charge, Schilling notes.

The important thing in any training is to start a dialogue that
creates staff awareness of the issues and opens the channels of
communication, according to Dangel. Staff members should feel safe
approaching managers with potential problems, questions or
suspects.

Aquatics facilities also need to have policies and standard
operating procedures in place that will serve as deterrents to
predators and minimize the risk that a sexual offense will be
committed on the premises.

Instituting stricter supervision requirements is a good first
step toward addressing the issue, according to law enforcement
agencies.

Another approach might be to hang signs that ask parents to stay
within arm’s reach of their children while on the premises,
suggests Shawn DeRosa, an attorney and consultant with the Aquatics
Safety Research Group, LLC, in State College, Pa. One pool in
Edmonds, Wash., even prohibits patrons from bringing cell phones
and video recording devices into locker rooms, according to
Whitman.

Furthermore, Whitman’s facilities have a policy of
documenting any incidents of strange behavior that occur at the
pools. “We take notes assuming that we might end up in court
someday,” says Whitman, whose lifeguards have testified in
the past for incidents that occurred at one of Seattle’s
pools. Her staff keeps the records on hand in what she calls
“the red files.” That’s probably good advice
considering the documents might be useful evidence in a criminal
trial or potential civil lawsuit.

Dangel suggests that employees conduct regular sweeps of
unmonitored areas similar to that of Whitman’s lifeguards,
who perform walk-throughs of locker rooms after every 15-minute
rotation. She’s also imposed time limits on how long someone
is allowed to be in the locker rooms and tries to promote gender
balance in her hiring so that the men’s and women’s
bathrooms receive equal attention. She makes sure there’s at
least one male and one female on duty at all times.

As mentioned earlier, it’s necessary to remove the layers
of anonymity that sex offenders seek. To that effect, Madani says
charging entry fees or asking guests to sign a log-in sheet at the
door can provide a point of contact between your staff and a
potential predator.

But even taking all of those precautions is no a guarantee an
offense won’t be committed at your facility, Dangel warns. At
the end of the day, constant vigilance and listening to patrons
might be the best way to thwart sex offenders — and keep your
facility safe.

“The best advice in all of this is to be the best witness
you can be,” Detective Shilling says. “By being
prepared for it and staying alert, you might save a child from a
lifetime of suffering.”